Make the dough, it’s enough for one pie with a bit left over for some small turn overs.

Every year since 2008 I have made a Concord Grape post. My favorite thing to do with Concord Grapes (other than eat them fresh as I walk away from the farm stand I just bought them at) is make a pie. Continue reading →

While watching this really beautifully shot new video from the Perennial Plate folks I kept trying to imagine what it must be like for kids to grow up in a place and with parents who did not give them every new thing as it came out onto the market. How do these kids live without an iPhone or more to the point: How do the parents babysit and get their kids to shut up without shoving a phone in their face so they can watch Frozen for the umpteenth time?

The answer is quite simple and I think very inspiring. Although I don’t imagine most New Yorker’s are going to give up their creature comforts to move to a remote rural area anytime soon, I have the utmost admiration for this family, their way of life and the hard work they do daily to make it work. I also really liked the mom’s message of how in this family the kids get to see their mom every day and be with them because she hasn’t taken work outside of the home. I wish this video had been longer I would like to know more. Do they sell at a market or to a restaurant? Is the dad around and does he work outside of the farm?

Sour cherry season is much-anticipated in our house. The season here is very short 3 maybe 4 weeks. When I first see them at the market I buy in bulk, bring them home and have my friends over to have a pitting party (as opposed to a pity party;-). This way through out the year when I am in need of a sour cherry treat I can just reach into my freezer. If you are not as obsessed as I am about sour cherries and haven’t spent much time and effort buying them in season and pitting them you can always buy frozen sour cherries online at Friske’s Farm Market.

Our Heart Within Us is a beautiful exposé on Guatemalan refugees who fled to the United States to escape violence and starvation to make a better home for themselves. I could help but think often of the current presidential campaign while I watched this. You want to build a wall to stop these people from entering our country? Really? Because hard-working loving families pose a threat to our sovereignty how?

Next up Waste Not about how the state of Colorado is dealing with food waste and waste from CAFO’s to create non fossil fuel based energy. It always makes me angry when I hear corporate hacks on TV who work for Monsanto or some other large corporate agriculture concern about how we need to innovate to keep up with feeding the worlds ever-increasing population. The truth is in this country we could feed all the hungry just on the food with throw away. We don’t need to grow any more or raise any more livestock we just really need to not be so wasteful, figure out better ways to distribute food. I walk by Whole Foods almost daily and the amount of food they throw out is astounding and they are not unique: instead of trying to genetically engineer food so that corporations can own seeds that are then only sold with a proprietary pesticide/herbicide why not spend all that money on just better using the food we already have? Oh right there’s no money in that.